Want To Work In the K-Pop Industry? Here’s How To Do It Right
K-Pop’s massive appeal has reached global proportions and widened opportunities for K-Pop groups and entertainers. The top Korean music labels have set up operations in the United States and Japan, both identified as areas with massive K-Pop following and further growth potential for business.
This expansion opened job opportunities for individuals who would like to work in the K-Pop industry, not necessarily as performers but also in behind-the-scene roles that help run operations smoothly. Last year, SM Entertainment, the label that launched prominent K-Pop groups such as EXO and NCT, posted employment opportunities allowing eligible foreign applicants to explore working with them. JYP Entertainment, the company responsible for TWICE and Stray Kids, also posted employment opportunities for its Japanese subsidiary.
With the influx of foreign applicants for K-Pop jobs, Conexus Lab, a company founded in 2019 to furnish learning resources for those seeking employment in the K-Pop industry, realized the need for a guidebook in English that these applicants can use and came up with How to Work in K-Pop Industry, an English e-book that will be available in November.
Conexus Lab CEO and co-founder Lee Sang Hwan was one of the book’s writers. Before setting up Conexus, he was a human resources practitioner in several companies, including HYBE Corporation, home to K-Pop Giant BTS, CJ ENM, and JTBC for over a decade.
The book consists of four main parts. The first part tackles the structures of K-Pop’s most prominent labels, such as SM, YG, and JYP Entertainment, and the various positions they offer. The second part offers practical employment application tips for resumes, cover letters, and interviews. The third part introduces strategies for finding internships and platforms for jobseekers to learn more about K-Pop. The last part completes the book with stories of foreign applicants who successfully found employment at the K-Pop labels.
Helping foreign applicants to get jobs in the K-Pop industry may be the goal of this project, but there’s a bigger picture behind it explained in the book.
The K-pop industry is growing rapidly, with more than a half of the sales at major entertainment companies coming from overseas. However, the market is still closed, and information asymmetry is high.
People outside Korea, who want to get K-Pop-related jobs, often suffer from a lack of access. Even if they get into the entertainment industry, there is no way to strengthen their job competency. For the growth of the K-pop industry, we felt that we needed to support people who are essential to this industry, as well as those who are willing to enter the market.
— Excerpts from How to Work in K-Pop Industry
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